


Eggs And Tephra

by 3amepiphany



Series: Drabbles 'n Bits [3]
Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Gen, that feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 18:33:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11811828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amepiphany/pseuds/3amepiphany
Summary: He glowered at her, barely aware of the pain under the seething rage that was building up in him.





	Eggs And Tephra

**Author's Note:**

> http://billetdouxnondistribue.tumblr.com/post/145833128922/omegalovaniac-chezlizz-tryin-to-practice

“I really, truly love this galaxy,” she said. He thought his anger could have rendered a black hole at the insinuation she had made just before.

At first he had no idea what was going on or where he was, or what had happened. He remembered the klaxons wailing, lights flashing, he remembered someone saying something about the ship, that they had to get out. After laying there for a while, trying his best to raise his alertness and awakeness, he moved. Everything hurt. He didn’t move again for a good measure.Didn’t want to, wasn’t planning to. So he took stock again. He remembered the wall and the surge of green, electric energy arcing ahead of them as they barreled straight towards it.

He remembered the sheer, sparkling sheet of ice melting down and around them as they raced on, and he remembered that shifting feeling he had in his chest and stomach as Syliva slipped on the ice under her feet.

And then that was it.

Who was he sharing a cell with?

There was someone else there and it was’t Sylvia, or Hater or Peepers.

“I really hate seeing what was our only chance out of this, lying there like that. Are you sure he’s not dead?”

“It may only be a formal title but I assure you I do have some first-response training. Definitely not dead. Not okay either, but definitely not dead.” It was Dr. Jones. Quietly, he called out to him. “See? Told you. Definitely not dead.”

He tried to sit up and became horribly aware of the fact that he couldn’t - his hands were shackled together with rock-hard … well. Rock.

“Boy Wander.”

He looked up at Screwball for a moment, confused. His leg seemed a lot heavier than usual, and made the sound of dragging chains when he moved it around. He realized his hat was gone, too. Or at least, not atop his head or within reach.Dag.

“….I meant Boy, Wander, with a pause. Like, ‘Boy, you sure had it handed to you,’ or ‘Boy, if pulling punches had a negative integer,’ or, ‘Boy–’”

From somewhere nearby, apparently the next cell over, Awesome interrupted him. “Shut up, doc, this is SO not the time for that.”

“Alright. Fine.” Wander watched him circle around him and then nearly passed out again as his old friend hoisted him up into a sitting position against the wall. “Your friends aren’t doing to hot. Or rather, they are, but only figuratively. Literally they aren’t. None of us are. I’m sorry I can’t do much else for you but it looks like most of your bleeding has stopped. It’s all internal now.”

Wander stared at him blankly, aware now that he could barely open his right eye - it wasn’t just from laying on the floor, it was swollen shut. He said nothing.

“…It’s supposed to be internal, isn’t it? Joke? Ha-ha? Your – … ah, nevermind.” His spiraling irises slowed. “You were out for a good while.”

Carefully, he looked around. The holding cells weren’t much bigger than he’d imagined they’d be. Surely Sylvia was in an adjacent one. “…Syl?” he asked.

His own cellmate shrugged. “No one’s got her, Wander. Hater’s in with McGuffin. His second-hand eye is down with the cat.”

At this, he heard Little Bits complain that her cellmate was still out cold. McGuffin wasn’t capable of speech anyways, but it didn’t seem like Hater was responding to the conversation happening, that he could hear. Where was Sylvia?

“Good morning, everyone, wakey wakey, eggs and tephra,” hollered Lord Dominator as the doors to the cell bay opened and she strutted in.

With a quiet, rumbly growl, Wander slouched forward and threw himself back, arching his hips and knees as best as he could and using his hands behind his back to walk himself up into a standing position. Well. A leaning position, for the moment. The pain in his arm and side kept him there, and he restraint around his leg was probably way too diminutive a length to do anything at all. Screwball looked at him, panicked, and then looked back at Dominator, afraid. “You shoulda stayed down, kid,” he hissed.

She came up to the bars of their cell and placed a hand out, burning a hole so quickly and so hotly that the fumes from it were black and acrid-smelling, and waiting a moment for a couple of her sentries to head in first to cover Screwball before stepping inside, herself.

“Well. Look at this soft, fuzzy wuzzy little warrior. Going to show me all about how I could power my ship on FRIEND-ship, hm? There’s not enough of that in any of these galactic quadrants. I’d have to move to the next system over to harvest enough of that resource.”

He glowered at her, barely aware of the pain under the seething rage that was building up in him.

“So sprightly. Oh, a new servant. Flesh and blood. He can bring me my morning coffee while I lounge on my new rug. It’s pretty tough to burn, but if I’m really trying, I can scorch it well enough. You’d think zbornaks have skin made of Terran diamonds. Oh, but speaking of jumping galaxies…” She smiled at him, a mouth full of teeth no more normal than his but still somehow more menacing than Emperor Awesome’s. “I really, truly love this galaxy. This tiny, pathetic, ore mine of a galaxy. It’s given me Volcanium X, it’s given me Frostonium, it’s given me epochs’ worth of entertainment. But I’m tired of the little things keeping me from enjoying that.” With a wide, sweeping gesture of both arms and an enthusiastic grin at everyone, she laughed.

“You can’t,” he forced out of himself, all angry, callous determination fueled by fear. He took a step forward, the chain attached to his leg rattling and the rock his arms were embedded in digging into the small of his back.

Dominator knelt in a deftly threatening motion.

“Yeah. Ya know what?” She smiled wider, a bit more unhinged, as one massive magma-tically dripping hand reaching forward to him, the clawed ends of her fingertips brushing against his chest and sending up small furls of smoke and the smell of singed fur, coming to rest just under his chin. She pushed his face up and slightly aside so that he could see her with his good eye; her own brilliant, angry, crazed stare fixed and rocking him to his very core. He tried to keep his knees from knocking and his shoulders from jittering, and he was failing, he knew he was failing hard and he could feel the pit of his stomach dropping. “I think I’m gonna keep this one.”

Wander shook hard, gritting his teeth together.


End file.
